A Shohei of Our Own

It’s a Free Thursday!

I’m going to say something bold here. Sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and say what you’re really seeing, and this is one of those times.

Shohei Ohtani is pretty good at this baseball thing.

It would have been nice if he was a New York Met. It apparently never came close to happening either time he was a free agent. Before Ohtani ultimately picked the Angels in 2018, the Mets… sent him a DVD, the contents of which I have been dying to discover since I read of its existence. The Mets didn’t even bother to pursue him during the 2023-24 offseason, according to Jon Heyman. They figured it was pointless. Apparently he told the Yankees during the first go-around that he couldn’t see himself playing in New York. 

Weird, I can. But I guess I have an active imagination. At least, a more active one than Shohei Ohtani’s.

It would be advantageous for the Mets, or anyone really, to have a two-way player like Ohtani of their own of course - you get a hitter and a pitcher just taking up one roster spot. With that in mind, I wonder if there are any Mets who could potentially pull off playing on both sides of the ball at a major league level. 

It’s too bad Noah Syndergaard is, to put it scientifically, washed. He hit six home runs in 222 at-bats, which is pretty good for a pitcher. He had back-to-back 80 OPS+ seasons at one point, which is also rather decent considering that wasn’t his number one, two, or three point of focus. Who knows if he would have been a better hitter had he worked on it?

Jacob deGrom famously was a shortstop at Stetson University who once went yard off of Chris Sale. He wasn’t very good of a hitter in the big leagues though, despite his three home runs. A lifetime .204 hitter isn’t terrible - the 35 OPS+ is (league average being 100.)

Yoenis Cespedes sometimes threw off a mound for giggles. Just saying.

Nolan McLean looked stellar in his few starts with the big league club last season. And he was a two-way player in college at Oklahoma State and in the minors until last year, when he ditched hitting to focus on pitching entirely. Doing so helped make him into the stud that he looks like he’s going to be on the mound. McLean was actually a better hitter than hurler in college, but he had more practice in the batters’ box. His OPS in his three seasons with OSU was .957. In 57.1 innings pitched, he had a 4.55 ERA. A part of me wants McLean to try hitting again, now that he seemingly has the pitching figured out. Most of me though knows that’s probably asking for trouble.

I can’t find any information about Brandon Sproat or Jonah Tong hitting in their high school years (Sproat didn’t have an at-bat at the University of Florida.) I was half-expecting to find one or both of them bragging that they knew what they were doing with hitting. Then again, even with my active imagination, I find it hard to picture Tong in the box. He’s probably quick and might manage bunt base hits though.

As far as the other pitchers on the team, I wonder about Clay Holmes. I would say his transformation from a reliever to a starter was successful. Maybe that’s not enough of a challenge for him. He’s an athlete, surely he can swing a bat as well as the next man. Griffin Canning (before he got hurt) I can also see having some success as a batter. He won a Gold Glove because he’s nimble. Also an athlete. I want Tyler Rogers to try just to see what a swing from a sidearmer looks like. Edwin Díaz has had two plate appearances in the bigs and only struck out once. It might be easy for him if he puts his mind to it. 

Okay, what about the current hitters? We know Luis Torrens can throw ropes to second base and has technically “pitched” in the big leagues. What if he threw as hard as he could whenever he finds himself on the mound? Ronny Mauricio is a freak (complimentary) with a big arm - I would not be shocked if he can make it work as a pitcher. I absolutely do not want him to do this, but I can’t help but be curious to wonder what Juan Soto would do if he suddenly had to pitch every so often. He was able to make himself into a generational talent with the bat. Maybe he would be able to do the same gripping horsehide.

Yep, it’s unlikely any Met right now is going to go the Ohtani route. It’s hard to do, apparently. Especially if you want to be All-Star caliber in both. 

Gregory Soto was acquired by the Mets in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles this past July. The 30-year-old lefty with his mostly sinker/slider mix was slightly below average for New York.

Soto was born in the Dominican Republic town of Haina. In December 2012, when he was 17 years old, he signed with the Detroit Tigers. Things got really interesting in 2019. That January, Soto was suspended by MLB for 20 games due to “conduct detrimental to baseball.” To this day, it’s unknown what it is he did exactly. The Tigers didn’t seem to mind the mysterious transgression because Soto got the call to The Show that May. He didn’t have a great rookie year, racking up a 5.77 ERA. His fielding was so bad that Jomboy made a compilation of his gaffes. 

His 2020 went better. Soto recorded his first career save in the bigs on August 29th. In 27 appearances he had a 4.30 ERA. Things got cooking in 2021 though. That is when Soto became an All-Star. His 4-1 record with a 2.18 ERA in the first half of the season was responsible. He finished with a 3.39 ERA, converting 18 out of 19 save opportunities, though he allowed nine out of 21 inherited runners to score.

Soto earned All-Star honors for a second year in a row, ending up with 30 saves in 2022. So naturally, the Tigers traded him in January 2023 to the Philadelphia Phillies. He would no longer be an everyday closer. Soto was a workhorse that year in Philly, coming out of the bullpen 69 times. He finished with a 4.62 ERA (93 ERA+), but had an excellent strand rate, only permitting five of the 28 baserunners he inherited to score (82 percent).After pitching in 43 games for the Phillies in 2024, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles for two minor leaguers. He stunk out loud for the O’s until the end of the year when he pulled it together, allowing just two earned runs in his final 16.1 innings of work in the regular season. For 2024 he stranded 21 out of 30 baserunners (70 percent). 

As a Met, Soto was a shade below meh with a 91 ERA+. He stranded 66 percent of the baserunners he inherited (25 out of 38). The league average in 2025 was 68 percent.

Gregory Soto is a pending free agent. Because he’s left-handed with the normal accompanying lefty-righty splits (.600 OPS against lefties, .757 against righties), he shouldn’t have a problem finding a home. 

Keith Hernandez appeared on The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman. Apparently he has not yet entered negotiations with SNY but he expects to get another three-year deal. We also found out that Keith had COVID in late September, which is why he missed a handful games at the end of the season.

Jon Heyman wrote that while the gap between the Tigers and Tarik Skubal is even bigger than originally reported, “rivals” don’t think Detroit will trade Skubal away because they are still a contending team. Let’s hope that turns out to be false.

The Scottsdale Scorpions fell just short against the Surprise Saguaros by a score of 8-7. C Chris Suero went 1 for 4 with a home run, two runs scored, an RBI, a walk, and a strikeout.